AL AL - Heaven Ross, 11, Northport, 19 Aug 2003

[johnny]

One that wasn't posted but should have been, and if I missed it.......then it deserves to be posted again anyways!

http://www.cw.ua.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/11/19/3fbb1e35af24d?in_archive=1

 

[johnny]

Missing girl has presents waiting for her

Today marks four months since Heaven LaShae Ross disappeared without a trace.

The 11-year-old was reported last seen walking to her bus stop on Hunter Creek Road on a rainy summer morning during her second week of middle school. Since then, 121 days have passed, and Shae would now be on winter break from school and preparing for Christmas.

A Christmas tree with lights and garland sits in the den of her parents’ trailer in Willowbrook Trailer Park. One of the few ornaments on the tree is a photo of Shae. Her mother, Beth Lowery, said that she couldn’t put many ornaments on the tree this year.

“That was always Shae’s job," she said. “I almost didn’t even put the tree up."

Lowery and her husband, Kevin Thompson, have been shopping for their other children Blake, 16, and Alex, 13. Shae has just as many presents under the tree as they do. Lowery bought items for Shae while shopping for her other daughter Alex.

“It’s just can’t shop for one and not the other. You know?" Lowery said. “It just doesn’t feel right with her gone."

“Even though we know it’s Christmas, it seems like a piece of the puzzle is missing," Thompson said.

Blake has had his sister’s name tattooed on his arm. Alex dyed her hair red, which Lowery said “makes her look like a tall Shae."

Both Lowery and Thompson said that they believe Shae is alive somewhere, although they are becoming more discouraged because she hasn’t been found.

Lowery says she believes that she is here in the Tuscaloosa area.

“I believe my baby’s right here in Tuscaloosa and can’t nobody find her. I believe they would have found her by now if she were dead," she said. “Either whoever has her doesn’t don’t have a phone or she otherwise doesn’t have access to one."

Lowery still wears her shirts with Shae’s picture almost every day.

“I don’t wear anything but my Shae shirts. We just feel closer to her when we have them on," she said.

Northport Police Investigator Terry Carroll said that he has received a few leads in recent weeks, but none that have panned out.

Shae’s parents said that they are surprised that no one has provided police with useful information in four months.

“That’s the hard part to believe. You know that somebody knows something," Thompson said.

Last Sunday, he spent much of the day watching newscasts about the capture of Saddam Hussein.

“I had to turn it off finally, it was making me mad," Lowery said. “I can’t believe they can go find a man in the ground but they can’t even go find one itty bitty 11-year-old redheaded child."

 

[johnny]

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/...0031225&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=312250311&Ref=AR

The message of Christmas shines through trying times
December 25, 2003


• Discuss this story


In many homes across West Alabama, crumpled wrapping paper and loose ribbon lie scattered about the house. Families are gathered. There is a mood of contentment perhaps fringed with a bit of disappointment.

Disappointment that someone we love is not with us this year. Disappointment that the season of excitement is giving way to the challenges of a new year. Disappointment for a gift wished for but not received.

Where is the promise of Christmas?

Certainly there are reasons to be unsettled. We are a nation at war. Many of our finest citizens are in dangerous, distant places. Our federal government warns us of an imminent threat that may rival the attack on the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Any such calamity, beyond the human tragedy, would snuff out the promise of an economic recovery.

Where is the peace of Christmas?

Closer to home, we wish for the safe return of Heaven LaShae Ross, missing now for four months. At her home in Northport, an ornament with her photograph hangs on a Christmas tree. We remain saddened and perplexed by the suicide of Gregg Davis, who seemed to be so successful as a downtown businessman and owner of DePalma’s. This is a year that has brought many losses, including the untimely death of journalist and educator Bailey Thomson.

There seems to be no end to the disagreements over where to build a third city high school and how that should be accomplished. Each step seems to bring more discord.

Many families already have been touched by shortfalls in state funding that have caused layoffs and cut services. We see darker clouds gathering on the horizon as the impact of funding shortfalls will only get worse, particularly for education.

Where is the joy of Christmas?

This is a holiday that promises not peace, not even joy, but hope. For Christians, it is a time to celebrate the coming of one who is seen as the savior of humanity. It is Jesus the baby, born in humble circumstances in a land under occupation. It is not the triumph of Easter. It is the birth of hope.

For Christians and non-Christians alike, there are plenty of reasons for hope. There are signs that a pluralistic, democratic nation may yet arise in Iraq. Saddam Hussein no longer roams free. No nation in the world dares openly to sponsor terrorism.

Many of our soldiers soon will be rotating home, even as others take their places. As a nation, we have averted another major terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001. Also, as a nation, we know from painful experience that we can survive any blow terrorists may somehow deliver.

As a community, there is no reason to doubt a solution can be found for Central High School. The debate may make us stronger.

It is hard to imagine that the citizens of Alabama and its leaders will allow public education and other essential services to fail. It may take a crisis to convince some people we need the fundamental fiscal and constitutional reforms championed by Thomson. And until we see evidence that Shae Ross won’t return safely, we will continue to hold out hope.

For those who celebrate Christmas, the greatest reason for hope was a child sought by wise men who followed a star. Jews observing Hanukkah rededicate themselves to God. Families gathered for Kwanzaa recognize the values that build communities. Through all of this is the message of the season -- hope.

 

[johnny]

4. Searching for Heaven

An 11-year-old girl disappears while walking to her bus stop at the end of her block.

On Aug. 19, Heaven LaShae Ross, called “Shae” by friends and family, seemed to vanish in a case that attracted an outpouring of community and national attention — not all of it positive.

From the start, relatives criticized police for not issuing an AMBER Alert, a relatively new tool letting the public know about missing children. But police defended their refusal to do so, citing the lack of evidence of a kidnapping.

Some scrutiny fell on the girl’s mother and her boyfriend. Each said they passed lie-detector tests, but a public quarrel with volunteer searchers and a fire at the family’s home added to the story.
Leads have dried up in recent weeks, but as family members marked Christmas without Shae, they remained hopeful that she would return safely.

 

[johnny]

Police search for Shae after receiving tip Wednesday
January 01, 2004

Email this story.


• Discuss this story


TUSCALOOSA | Tuscaloosa Police searched in and around a shopping center on Skyland Boulevard for about two hours Wednesday evening after someone reported possibly seeing Heaven LaShae Ross in the area.

The 11-year-old Northport girl, known as “Shae,” has been missing for more than four months.

Sgt. Drake Jones, supervisor with the Tuscaloosa Police Department, said after the call came in at about 5:30 p.m., officers fanned out over the old Service Merchandise shopping center on Skyland Boulevard to talk with people and search the area for Shae.
Jones said it is standard procedure to follow up a reported sighting of a missing person by sending officers to the area. He would not characterize how credible the tip was.

He said he talked with the person who reported seeing Shae but declined to say who it was.

Jones said all the information from the search would be turned over to the Northport Police Department, which is heading the investigation into Shae’s disappearance.

Shae was last seen walking to her bus stop on Hunter Creek Road from her home in the Willowbrook Trailer Park on Aug. 19

 

[johnny]

Fayette County deputies find body in abandoned well
January 02, 2004

Email this story.


• Discuss this story


Fayette sheriff’s deputies suspect foul play after finding an adult female’s body in an abandoned well.

Barry Corkren, chief deputy of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, said the body had been at the bottom of the 15-foot well for weeks. It was discovered between 10 a.m. and noon Wednesday, Corkren said. He did not disclose how the body was discovered but said that authorities believe the woman may have been murdered.

Authorities are waiting on the return of forensic evidence to identify the woman. Corkren said deputies are still collecting evidence at the site, which he would only say is in the eastern part of Fayette County.

He said the body is definitely not that of Heaven LaShae Ross, the 11-year-old who has been missing from Northport since Aug. 19, as has been a rumor in Fayette County since the body’s discovery.

“We want to make it clear that it’s not going to be that child," Corkren said

 

[johnny]

Father’s search for daughter ends

By Scott Parrott
Staff Writer
January 03, 2004

Email this story.




• Discuss this story


BERRY | When Amy Files disappeared in September, her father, George Files, hoped she just moved away without leaving word.

The family posted fliers with her photograph throughout the area. The days passed, then a month, then two. Still, Files remained hopeful.

But when Christmas came and went without a phone call, the worry grew greater, and Files intensified his search. The search, he said, ended this week, down a narrow dirt road on the outskirts of the town, in the bottom of an abandoned well.

“I don’t know if we would’ve ever found her, if it hadn’t been for word of mouth," Files said Friday, two days after Fayette County Sheriff’s investigators found a woman’s body in the shaft off Flat Creek Road, submerged in about 6 feet of water.

The sheriff’s department is working to positively identify the woman, who apparently was killedd. The state Department of Forensic Sciences is performing an autopsy.

But Files said he is sure it is Amy, who would have turned 34 next month.

Sheriff Hubert Norris said the woman appeared to be in her 30s. He said cables were tied around her neck, and the cables were weighed down with two concrete blocks.

“We have suspects in the case," he said.

Files said someone who knew his daughter led him to the property where the well is located.

When he came to the well, he said, he didn’t want to look inside.

“I told the kid, 'I can’t look down there, I just can’t do it,’ " he said.

But he had been searching for months. He looked. It was dark, and he could see little.

It wasn’t until later, after the sheriff’s department deputies came, that he said his search for his daughter ended.

Now he is searching for justice.

“I just want them to find the people that did this," he said. “They shouldn’t have done this."

Reach Scott Parrott at [email protected].

 

[johnny]

Ross case files reviewed
January 07, 2004

Email this story.


• Discuss this story


NORTHPORT | Retired police investigators working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children are in Northport this week to review the case of Heaven LaShae Ross, the 11-year-old who has been missing since August.

Consultants Dennis Weaver, a retired special agent for the FBI, and Dave Hatch, retired from the Las Vegas Police Department, will review files and revisit people and places that were of interest at the beginning of the investigation.

Northport Police Department spokesman Lt. Kerry Card said the consultants are not here because of any particular development.

“We want to actively keep working the case. It’s been planned for weeks," he said.

Weaver was here in August when a task force comprising members of the Northport and Tuscaloosa police departments, Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the FBI worked the case around the clock.

 

[WasBlind]

For Heaven

 

[johnny]

By Stephanie Taylor
Staff Writer
February 19, 2004

Email this story.


Beth Lowery, Heaven LaShea Ross’s mother, looks at items she has assembled in Shae’s bedroom. The bedroom burned recently and has been refurbished. Shae has been missing for six months.
Staff Photo | Michael E. Palmer

• Discuss this story


NORTHPORT | Candy, gold initial earrings, a Valentine’s Day balloon and a vase of roses sit on a table in Heaven LaShae Ross’ bedroom -- holiday surprises for her if she comes home.

But after six months with no sign of Shae, family members are beginning to consider the possibility that they may never see her again.

“It’s getting worse," her mother, Beth Lowery, said this week. “Reality is slowly setting in. There’s a strong possibility that she is not going to walk in that door any second like we think."

Shae, 11, disappeared six months ago today, on Aug. 19. Her sister last saw her walking to the bus stop at the entrance to Willowbrook Trailer Park at Hunter Creek Road.

Months after her disappearance, Shae is still getting nationwide exposure.

Several organizations continue to profile her, which gives her family hope that someone somewhere will recognize her.

In March, Shae will be the missing child featured in Project Jason’s 18-wheel Angels program. Project Jason is a program started by a Nebraska family whose son disappeared in 2001.

Truck drivers who volunteer to participate will post Shae’s picture on the sides of their trucks.

Shae’s photo is also being circulated on envelopes sent from Sen. Richard Shelby’s office. The Laura Recovery Center, a missing children’s group from Texas that traveled to Tuscaloosa in August to help search for Shae, recently featured her on their nationwide postcards.

Lowery and her husband, Kevin Thompson, said they were devastated to watch the story of Carlie Brucia on television earlier this month.

Carlie was the 11-year-old in Sarasota, Fla., whose abduction was caught on surveillance video as she took a shortcut through a car wash.

Five days later, she was found dead behind a church just a few miles away.

FBI investigators here contacted agents working the case in Sarasota, who determined that the suspect had not been in Tuscaloosa when Shae disappeared, said Northport Police officer Terry Carroll, the lead investigator on the case.

Carlie was the same age as Shae, and their appearance was similar.

“There for a minute, watching this on TV was like reliving this all over again," Lowery said. “Since they found her so close, it made me just go outside so many times, looking, looking.

“Looking for what, I had no idea."

Shae’s room was damaged in a fire at the family’s mobile home in September. The state fire marshal has turned over results of the investigation to police, who have not made them public.

After keeping the bedroom door closed for four months, Lowery and Thompson went in last month and replaced the carpet and repainted.

“For four months, we kept that door closed, but it was like we were closing her off. We couldn’t do it anymore," Thompson said.

And the family has not forgotten Shae during the holidays.

Besides the Valentine’s Day gifts, the family’s Christmas tree is in the corner of her room, with wrapped gifts underneath.

Halloween candy sits on her dresser along with other gifts.

A lamp on her table has been burning constantly for several weeks.

“I feel like the lamp is going to bring her home," Lowery said. “Maybe it’s an old wives’ tale, but I’ll never turn off that light."

Reach Stephanie Taylor at [email protected] or 722-0210.

 

[Doyle]

A fire that started in the bedroom of a missing Northport girl may have been intentionally started, the state fire marshal said.
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040302/APN/403020846

 

[stormonster]

This makes me think that the perp is close enough in proximity to worry about possible evidence. What was in that room? Any speculations?

 

[Juliana]

Last week a 14 year old girl in Arkansas was reported missing. A Morgan alert was issued and she was found later that day. Police believe she was abducted. After she was returned home that evening, a fire broke out in her family's trailer, and the girl was killed. Sounds like the fire may have originated or been worse in her room. Her parents tried to save her. Her mother was severely burned in the process. Sounds kind of like the situation with Heaven Ross and her family's home cathing on fire, starting in her room.

They have a man in custody in connection with the Arkansas situation. Wonder if he has any ties to Heaven's case?

http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles/2004/02/25/news/news4.txt

 

[babylove]

A fire that started in the bedroom of a missing Northport girl may have been intentionally started, the state fire marshal said.
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040302/APN/403020846

The fire investigation report showed the fire started in a small hole in the floor at the foot of the bed and at the foot of a recliner. Investigators found a cigarette butt and trash in the hole.

Lowery and Thompson said they had never seen it before.

When they say "trash" do they mean paper? What kind of trash?

Whoever started the fire must have had access to the home. The mother said that Shae's brother usually sleeps in her room, but wasn't home the night of the fire. To me, that says someone was trying to cover something up, but either didn't want to be caught attempting to start the fire by her brother, or didn't want her brother to be hurt in the fire.

I read in a previous article that all of the windows were screwed shut, with the exception of the one in the top of the trailer. Whoever started the fire put the lit ciggarette in this small hole with some paper trash to get it going. Fine. But wouldn't they have had to be in the home, I mean, even if they did try to say they came in through the top window, how big can a trailer home top window really be?

Someone that knew the family and had access to the home or someone who was in the family had something to do with this. What were they trying to hide? Unless it was the brother smoking in his room and maybe he put the cigg out in the hole, not realizing there was paper in there also... and maybe he took off once he couldn't get the fire out to avoid getting in trouble, but why would he leave his family in danger if they were sleeping?

http://www.rinokids.com/Children/Ross/

Who is this Evin Ryland person? It gives no further info about him other than he is wanted for questioning.

 

[dannyodie]

its good to know that the police down there have not given up on heaven, this child disappeared somewhat the same way that tabitha tuders did in april of 2003, to this date there are some leads, but for now it seems to be a still puzzling case. the link to the article that babylove left in her post takes you to a interesting subject, in that he helps runnaway children, yea right! to me I can't see a adult offering out help to runnaways unless they are licensed in some way. does any one know if the police have ever talked to this man? if he has come up un-accounted for since she disappeared than I would say that the police have a good person of interest to continue persueing.. this man to me just looks the type, " one that would pray on children " but thats just my own gut feeling about him. if he is the one than he either ran away with her. I hold out hope for that to be the case. to many times these children are abused and murdered...

 

[johnny]

Sounds like the hole was, or could've been drilled from beneath the floor of the trailer. Most trailers have underpinning but it is usually only sheet metal (which this home has) and that would be easy to move out of the way. Electric drill, a cigarette and some paper. And by the time the fire catches on the perp is long gone.

Of course this fire could've been started by someone like her brother or Common Law step father from inside the home as well.

 

[Doyle]

It's been seven months since Heaven LaShae Ross vanished from her Northport trailer park, yet investigators and family members said they're no closer to finding her.

"I'm still pretty mystified," said Northport police detective Terry Carroll. "She just disappeared. I don't know what happened to her."
http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1079950589317070.xml

 

[johnny]

Seems odd the mother was sleeping and the so called "Common Law husband" jumps up after Shae heads to the bus stop, two blocks away. To many things point to the step father. No doubt she loved him, but what was she to him?

 

[WasBlind]

For Heaven

 

[Kelly]

Family Marks 1st Anniversary Of Child's Disappearance
Thursday August 19, 2004 9:44pm


Northport (AP) - The mystery of what happened to Heaven LaShae Ross has only grown deeper in the year since she disappeared.

The redheaded 11-year-old was last seen a year ago today, when she was reported missing after failing to show up at her school bus stop.

Since then, rumors and questions have swirled about how a child could seemingly vanish during the day in the middle of the community where she lived.

For mother Beth Lowery, her common-law husband Kevin Thompson and the rest of their family, the year has brought heartache, false leads, bitter disputes and public scrutiny.

For police, it's been a perplexing mix of suspicions and tips - none of which has led them to the girl friends knew as Shae.

Lowery believes her daughter saw someone she knew and accepted a ride to avoid ominous weather the morning she was last seen.

Lowery says she firmly believes that here daughter will come home one day.

http://beta.abc3340.com/news/stories/0804/167382.html